re-examined it today; much has changed (speedy with a global warming sense of urgency).
Squeaky Wheel
Late Friday afternoon I had a rather tense phone exchange with Dr. T's nurse. She had had a long day by the time we spoke. And I felt like there was a giant hour glass in front of me with a wicked witch bidding her time and rubbing her hands in glee. Our time was running out but no one was getting back to me, so I exercised my new found skills (taught so lovingly to me by Jody) of being a squeaky wheel.
On Wednesday of last week I was sure I heard that we would be getting a call from the pulmanologist to schedule a biopsy. If we were not contacted by Friday I should call Dr. T's office, so I did.
My first call was at 10:43 am, yes 10:43 that is the miracle of our smartphone age. We always know when we made or received a call, text, or email. This makes it either easy or hard to look back on situations like this.
The message left was simple. It's Friday and we haven't heard about the biopsy so I am calling to let you know. At 1:00 pm I was getting the feeling that I was in some kind of Franz Kafka book. Look him up, he was part of my University life and from time to time he swirls around in my head.
I called the administrators office and left a message; then left message number two with Dr. T's nurse. That was 1:02 pm. For added measure I also left a message at 1:06 with the other nurse we had met on day one. A little over kill but now you see where my psychological state had drifted.
As 3:30 rolled around I gave up on messaging the Odette Center folks and took to the directory to track down the biopsy doctor himself Dr. S. Let me take a moment and put things in context. I was envisioning further delays would occur if we did not get this scheduled immediately.
Here's what I heard on Dr. S's answering service..."this office is now closed through Nov. 21".
Yikes ! Should I have started with his office first?
The first "call back" came from the administrator at Dr. T's office at 3:45, assuring me that all was good and that scheduling would be taking place. At 4:15 came the icy blast from Dr. T's nurse. I will not share details but let's just say "terse" would fit the beginning, middle and end result of that conversation. Since you only have my point of view ( and it is the right one :-) I certainly had her attention. And briefly, in her defence, she did keep her cool.
So off into the wonderful weekend I went smouldering about how I may need a refresher course in squeaky wheel theory. Yes the outcome was fine but my dismount was way off balance and I don't think I needed to add that 3.5 degree of difficulty with multiple phone calls. I'll do better next time. As I learned from Marx and Engels "the end justifies the means".
As you will see by the picture above I am spreading my technical wings. While words can be fun, words and pictures double the fun. This is the sight we see every time we arrive at the Odette Center. Every time you are expected to check in at the main reception. They notify everyone you are going to see that day, you are in the building. Kind of like checking in for a flight but this one is headed to an entirely different land.
Welcome to the land of cancer treatment.
Here is the latest update...
The biopsy is scheduled for Thursday afternoon. From this we will get a pathology report by November 30. Until then we twist in the wind.
Happy Thanksgiving to our US family and friends this Thursday.
No comments:
Post a Comment